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In past years, Apple was on a downward spiral, but now the Mac is back on the right track. The interim CEO Steve Jobs has brought them from expected quarterly loses to now, first quarter net income of some 150 millions dollars. The question still remains, is Apple back to stay? With the Windows driven world of today, can Apple assert them self to claim market share? Apple’s stunning new hardware, user-friendly operating system, and drive for incredible new technology, will not only compare Apple to traditional PC and software maker but will stun the rest of the computer world along the way. On July 21, 1999, PC Data released a report stating the iMac, Apple’s entry level personal computer, was the best selling retail and mail order computer in the month of June. There are a number of different reasons why this computer beat out all other PC’s on the market. One reason is the new and exciting colors the iMac is being offered in. Instead of the traditional color, beige, being offered by Dell or Gateway, the iMac comes in strawberry, blueberry, grape, tangerine and lime. Another feature for the iMac is the speed of the computer compared to the computers in its class. According to the BYTEmark integer test, the 333-MHz G3 processor in the iMac is almost twice as fast as the 500-MHz Intel Pentium III found in professional computers found today. The iMac is not the only computer offered by Apple. They have a line of professional personal computers called the G3 series. These computers are the fastest personal computers on the market today, beating other computers such as the Gateway 550-MHz Pentium III PC. Another main reason the iMac is such a big success and Apple in general is coming back is their operating system called the MacOS. Its number one feature is its user-friendliness. Apple computers such as the iMac are called plug-and-play computers. This means you plug a device into your computer, like a zip drive, and it works. No installing drivers like the Window-based computers are made to do. Another success for the Macintosh Operating System is the Sherlock searching device. It is an effective way to search the Internet using multiple search engines at the same time. The feature is very important because this means no more going search engine to search engine looking for a particular topic, like all other computer users have to do, but doing this in one simple location and is easy to use. The Windows operating system has no feature to compare to the Sherlock search engine. Finally the new MacOS is equipped with one feature that no other operating system has, and that is speech recognition. A person can ask the computer, “What time is it?” and will receive it. The most popular operating system, Windows, has no comparable feature to speak of. There are several reasons attributing to the Apple come back but no more than the new dedication by Apple to drive technology further than anyone personal computer company has. One of the fantastic new technologies is the Airport networking device developed by Lucent Technologies just for the Apple iBook. This is a wireless networking system that lets you travel up to 150 feet away from the base station. No other computer maker such as Dell or Micron, has a technology like this on the market as of today. One more incredible advancement by Apple is the new Quicktime TV. What this does is brings you living, streaming television transmission over the Internet. Its competition, Real Player, has much lower quality of picture than the Quicktime program does. An addition to the great new technologies being introduced and supported is the continued excellence for the graphics in the industry. Apple has always supported graphical software and hardware but the continued vision of where the industry is going with software titles like Adobe PhotoShop and Apple’s new FinalCut Pro surpasses anything the rest of the other computer and software makers have to offer. Another push for the advancement of PC technology, by Apple, is the newly adopted USB port. Universal Serial Bus is the technology that will eventually over take the serial port. It is much faster and easier to use than the serial port. Apple recognized the USB technology immediately and adopted it, but Microsoft had to release a second edition of its operating system to fully support this new groundbreaking tool. Finally, the new Macintosh operating systems are showing great support for the futurist programming language of Java. Eventually, Java programming language will control such devices as washer and driers, stoves, and televisions. Windows is just starting to support future uses of Java. Apple’s ad campaign is based on the two words of “Think Different”, and I believe they are even taking these words home to Apple. With new technologies being introduced rapidly, iMac sales at an all time high, and this eye for new inventions, which is to say Apple, is not back? With this pulse on the personal computer industry, Apple will continue to forge ahead with more growth and revenues. With this Apple, is likely to become a major player, again, in the industry of personal computing.